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BR remove microscopic dust mites © remove up to 82.6¢. of the mildew, mold ard bactenta atr contarminarnts * W lower energy costs € 4 B clectrostatic filters avatlable ’P(’f(l[S &E Pots im Gary Miller STEAMATIC. AIR DUCT CLEANING Your child will travel light years without leaving the library. Travel across the imagination and beyond with TD‘s Summer Reading Club, where reading is as enjoyable as it is rewarding. Your kids can improve their reading skills while having fun with daily visits from authors, storytellers, puppet shows and more. Plus they‘II receive a poster. stickers and activity book to track their reading progress. Signing up is easy and free. Just stop by your local lhibrary and register today 150 _ fAfeax#y | 1e Breathe cleaner air Call 742â€"7221 Nobods Cleans Better Than Steamatic! Call us _7 00 (519) 893â€"0046 Summer Reading Club Flower & Gift Shop Call 885â€"2180 A jornt mitrative with Library and Archives Canada Labrary and Archone . Aibiathique at Archvas Euoate Canacn Valerie Poulton was fipping television I‘ hannels the other day, partially trying to avoid the commercials and par tially trying to find some thing worth watching on a Sunday aftternoon. when I came a cross a program torecasting dooin far televi sion advertisers Since 1 had just Nipped to aviaid t’ll”]”l(‘ll'l-l)\, HiV mterest was piqued the show continued to point out that the new tech nulugies of digital video recorders. then ease of use. and teabures such as um fouch recording wuere going to he the dow nlall ot the 40â€" minute commercial in the near liture 1t this is ruly the case then advertisets are in trou ble. letevision advertisers in particular can no longer consider their audience to Appetizers for advertisers Canadg be capiive (as f dhey ever dids. Uhere is an old adage that halt of your advertising dollars are wasted, but no ume knows which halt. With the ability to Fust forward through recorded commercials, perhaps this dusty saving needs to be updated? Now it is possible to sit down at the day‘s end. turn on the glowing box in vour living room and not have to watch a single ad or miss a minute of vour favourite shows. They can all be waiting for you on your set top boa‘s hard drive. It must make advertisers lose sleep at night! But Um sure all is not lost. The more clever ad men and women are workâ€" ing away at different forms of getting our attention. Some of the new methods are less obvious than others. You‘ve may have already heard of the phrase "prodâ€" uct placements". Music videos, madeâ€"forâ€" TV programs and movies are all falling victim to the appearance or promotion of products that are paid for by the product manufacturer. MICHAEL HIEMSTRA My favourite examples are several more than obvi ous ads in the Austin Powers movies. While television advertis ing may be shifting gears. people in the business should be aware that the medium itself is undergoing a dramatic change tt is reported that the number of worldwide broadband ifaster than modem speed} Internet connectiorns recently reached Uxt million, with 28 million being added in the past six munths alone Mong with a broadband cmnection, L‘Ulllplll\‘l Lisets now have the abrlity to watch streaming video ilike an Internet broadeast! or download shows anvtime they wish. Without going into the legal issues of file sharing, the possibility for adâ€"free TV on your computer is here today and the potential for it moving into vour living room is not far off. Some people I know have their PCs connected 10 their televisions already. What is in the realm of my fellow geeks today will na doubt be common techâ€" nology tomorrow. Microsodt is pushing hard to become a dominant player in the arena of "media servers‘ and proâ€" grammers in the open source movement are turnâ€" ing out free software to dish up DVÂ¥D quality files for viewing on your set. There are also groups pushing to empower the public to begin publishing their own video creations an the Internet. The Participatory Culture Foundation is producing the "Broadcast Machine‘", free software for publishing and viewing online program iming. and the University of Fexas is releasing similar software under their ACI Lab program Each of these efforts aum to revolunonize the way we watch television and have the potential of bringing it into our homes swithoult commercials loday we see the average viewer flipping over and skipping past commercials, and on the horizon a profif eration of adâ€"free content What is a company to do when they want to get thei imessuge out" One muve is to take their ads where peo ple are captive. like the movie theatre or il]l'l)l)l‘[, Uhe Internet is anether imediwmn as well. Banner ads, â€" those rectangular ads, â€" those rectangular blocks of flashy graphies at the tops and sides of web pages, could provide a way to bring customers in. For instance. Google‘s advertising programs place ads in specific pages located next to content ‘hi" is f(’h" vant to the ad. Unline advertising also makes it easier to track ad efficieney. The Internet might be scaring advertisers, but it van also allow businesses to interact with their cusâ€" tOmers Surveys, online contents. user forums and corporate blogs are all becoming more popular. popwar. Using this potential creâ€" atively could let customers play a role in directing advertising dollars and even aid in new product developâ€" ment. We all say "Yeah baby‘" to that. Visit Michael‘s "Bits of Life" blog at http:i*mghiemâ€" stra.com! for discussions on column topics and other interesting bits. ith the limitless Wchnicm the Interâ€" net provides, you can order a vast array of products and services from all around the world â€" with just the click of a mouse. "Internet shopping raisâ€" es a number of security concerns, so consumers should first determine that a business is legitimate and that its web site clearly disâ€" closes certain information," says chartered accountant Rajula Atherton, partner, Atherton & Atherton in Toronto. "Whether you‘re shop ping offline or online, you need to be aware of security and privacy issues and fol low the philosophy of caveat emptor buyer beware," advises chartered accountant Debi Rosati, president of RosatiNet Inc . Continued on page 23